Sunday, August 31, 2008

Steve Diamond's response to Lenz's backtrack on Obama's work with Bill Ayers.

Perhaps the editors of the Sun Times should feel "a little silly" about inviting Ms. Lenz to pen an editorial defending a former terrorist without identifying her fully.

Ms. Lenz is associated with the Alliance for Excellent Education on whose board sits Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond. And on Ms. Lenz' board of directors at the Community Renewal Society is Warren Chapman, one of the founders of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and a former staff member of the Joyce Foundation on whose board served Barack Obama.

While Ms. Lenz brushes over the self-proclaimed "radical" nature of school reform in Chicago she also ignores the fact that a central goal of the Annenberg Challenge led by Ayers and Obama was to bolster flagging Local School Councils, a new power center in the schools set up in the wake of a teachers strike to watchdog teachers and principals.

And although in a recent talk she gave she lauds the research conducted by the Consortium on Chicago School Research of the University of Chicago, she ignores their studied conclusion that the Annenberg Challenge was a failure. $160,000,000 down the drain and no improvement in student outcomes.

No wonder the Mayor pushed against Ayers and Obama to re-centralize power over the schools, although that was no comfort to the teachers union.

Oh, at least Ms. Lenz gets one thing right: Ayers was indeed not "just some guy in the neighborhood" as Senator Obama attempted to mislead the American people into thinking. Given the failure of the Annenberg Challenge and the authoritarian outlook that a former terrorist brought to the reform effort, no wonder he made the attempt.

In recent weeks, Republican strategists have urged Mr. McCain to run against the Democrats who control Congress. But that isn’t enough for Mr. McCain. By picking Ms. Palin, he has signaled that he will campaign against the Republicans in Congress, too.

This is one he's going to need flesh out in the debates. You can bet the Pakistanis want to know.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

I was a fan of Biden's and this piece from Foreign Policy in Focus explains why.

Rather than being a hapless victim of the Bush administration’s lies and manipulation, Biden was calling for a U.S. invasion of Iraq and making false statements regarding Saddam Hussein’s supposed possession of “weapons of mass destruction” years before President George W. Bush even came to office.

As far back as 1998, Biden was calling for a U.S. invasion of that oil rich country. Even though UN inspectors and the UN-led disarmament process led to the elimination of Iraq’s WMD threat, Biden – in an effort to discredit the world body and make an excuse for war – insisted that UN inspectors could never be trusted to do the job. During Senate hearings on Iraq in September of that year, Biden told Ritter, “As long as Saddam’s at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction.”

Calling for military action on the scale of the Gulf War seven years earlier, he continued, “The only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end up having to start it alone,” telling the Marine veteran “it’s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking Saddam down.”

I didn't think Biden or Clinto saying anything false about Saddam back in 1998 and it's a big reason why I voted Gore-Lieberman back in 2000. Bush's jokes about his smarts seemed way to flip and easily misunderstood once translated into Arabic. FPIF feels betrayed by Obama. I was a Democrat who felt betrayed by Biden. What a pair of Dems to have leading the ticket.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

History tosses us another Czcheosolvakia to reveal today's appeasers. The McCain report writes what the test tells us of Obama.

A joint statement on Russia's aggression in Georgia by the Presidents of Poland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania:

We, the leaders of the former captive nations from Eastern Europe and current members of the European Union and NATO– Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – are extremely concerned about the actions of the Russian Federation against Georgia. We strongly condemn the actions by the Russian military forces against the sovereign and independent country of Georgia.

Following the unilateral military actions of the Russian military forces, we will use all means available to us as Presidents to ensure that aggression against a small country in Europe will not be passed over in silence or with meaningless statements equating the victims with the victimizers.

Reports already put the death toll in Georgia in the thousands and the fighting is only intensifying. In response to this crisis, the Obama campaign has chosen to play politics by casting cheap aspersions at advisers to Senator McCain which, coincidentally, echo the attacks of Russian PR firms.

In fact, the initial response from the Obama campaign was characterized by precisely the kind of rhetoric that the leaders of these nations warn against--a meaningless statement that equates the victim with the victimizer by calling on both sides to show restraint. Asking the Georgians to show restraint is like asking the Hungarians to show restraint as Russian tanks rolled into the country in 1956, or for restraint from the students in Prague in 1968.

The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment--it answers them.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

While we wait for first light in Georgia and the scale of the morning assaults — and Russia cannot be seen to lose this fight — it is worth noting the vast difference between Senator Obama’s response and Senator McCain’s. Mr. Obama is on his way to vacation a week in a private residence in his native Hawaii. Mr. McCain is on the campaign trail.

Mr. Obama remarked, “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war…”

Mr. McCain remarked, “Russian should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all force from sovereign Georgian territory.”

On the other hand, Mr. McCain demands that Russia cease fire immediately and get out of Georgia. Webads in train, speaking also on Sunday 10 with my professionals as well as Dick Morris and Larry Kudlow and who is Neville Chamberlain and who is Winston Churchill?

The fighting should be a deafening wake-up call to the West. Our fatal mistake was made at the Nato summit in Bucharest in April, when Georgia's attempt to get a clear path to membership of the alliance was rebuffed. Mr Saakashvili warned us then that Russia would take advantage of any display of Western weakness or indecision. And it has.

Michael Crowley at TNR highlights this surreal clip of John Edwards in 2004 mouthing Obama’s signature 2008 line about “The Politics of Hope.”

Mike’s takeaway — that the video “reminds us a) there are only so many campaign themes in presidential politics and b) just how much John Edwards has reinvented himself” — misses the vital connection between the candidates.

David Axelrod. The media guru who managed Edwards failed 2004 presidential campaign. The same media guru who became Barack’s senate campaign consultant later that cycle and is still Obama’s message man today.

Coincidence? C’mon….

C'mon is right. Gotta wonder if Edwards was just into the primary as spoiler with Axelrod cooridinating it all.

The declaration of Ayatollah Boroujerdi's followers in Iran and Europe because of continuation of last detention by regime

The big wave of suppression and detention of followers of Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the liberal and pacifist clergyman, during last days is an alarm means increasing the politic of liberal repression in Iran. these inhuman actions that are done in a suffocating and illegal atmosphere and are concordant with spread of execution wave such as dastardly execution of Yaqoub Mehrnahad ,the young Iranian journalist , increase the concerns of Human Rights societies and activists in all of the world and also liberal personalities in religious and anti-democratic government of Iran.

Detention of some followers of Ayatollah Seyed Hosein Kazemeini Boroujerdi, the liberal and opposed to Velayat-faqih clergyman, during last days under the names of: Habib Quvati, Mohammadreza Sadeghi, Majid Alasti, Mehrdad Souri, and Masoud Samavatian has made a deep concern for the followers of the "separation of religion from government" thought and apolitical Islam followers including Ayatollah Boroujerdi's followers.

Nowadays, the modern world knows very well there is no sign of democracy in our country, Iran and dissidence in suffocating government of Iran can even cause to death. Freedom of opinion and speech and Individual freedom are the public demand of Iranian people that have changed into an impossible wish for them.The government that even doesn't attend to peaceful protest is not proper and efficient for liberal people of Iran.

According to the received news, the detentions wave of Ayatollah Boroujerdi' followers will be continued during coming days. .some of Ayatollah Boroujerdi's followers including Alireza Montazer-Saheb 37-year-old and married , Ali Shahrabi-farahani 33-year-old and married , Ahmad karimian 39-year-old and married, Hasan Harischian 35-year-old and married, and Ali Arbabi 36-year-old and married ,must introduced themselves to special court of clergy ! in order to execution of very long time imprisonments about them.

Noting to the critical economical situation and increasing inflation wave in Iran, detention of these people who all are supporter of their families, is an inhuman action and leads to appear mental and economical pressures for their the families. These people who majority of them have higher education , are eliminated from governmental job and denied permission to all the citizenship rights. The fact of these illegal actions of Tehran regime will be appeared when you know trial process of these people was completely injustice and above-named were sentenced to imprisonment while they were denied permission to lawyer.

It's necessary to mention, repression of Ayatollah boroujerdi's followers began on Oct 2006 further to his protest to intervention of the religion in government and also issue some crude sentences like : execution, stoning and amputation by Iran government on and has continued as yet.

We hereby, in addition to reject the trial process of last detentions, express that the effort and pursuit of all human Rights societies and activists also all international News agencies to stop detention of Ayatollah Boroujerdi's followers and other prisoners for opinion and politic in Iran is a crucial matter to create and spread democracy .

With wish a world full of the justice and freedom for all peopleThe followers of Ayatollah Seyed Hosein Kazemeini Boroujerdi in Iran and Europewww.bameazadi14.blogspot.com